This act was signed into law on August 6, 1965, by President Lyndon Johnson. It outlawed the discriminatory voting practices adopted in many southern states after the Civil War, including literacy tests as a prerequisite to voting.
This “act to enforce the fifteenth amendment to the Constitution” was signed into law 95 years after the amendment was ratified. In
those years, African Americans in the South faced tremendous obstacles to voting,
including poll taxes, literacy tests, and other bureaucratic restrictions to deny
them the right to vote. They also risked harassment, intimidation, economic reprisals,
and physical violence when they tried to register or vote. As a result, very few
African Americans were registered voters, and they had very little, if any, political
power, either locally or nationally.
In 1964, numerous demonstrations were held, and the considerable violence that
erupted brought renewed attention to the issue of voting rights. The murder
of voting-rights activists in Mississippi and the attack by state troopers on
peaceful marchers in Selma, AL, gained national attention and persuaded President
Johnson and Congress to initiate meaningful and effective national voting rights
legislation. The combination of public revulsion to the violence and Johnson's
political skills stimulated Congress to pass the voting rights bill on August
5, 1965.
The legislation, which President Johnson signed into law the next day, outlawed
literacy tests and provided for the appointment of Federal examiners (with the
power to register qualified citizens to vote) in those jurisdictions that were
"covered" according to a formula provided in the statute. In addition,
Section 5 of the act required covered jurisdictions to obtain "preclearance"
from either the District Court for the District of Columbia or the U.S. Attorney
General for any new voting practices and procedures. Section 2, which closely
followed the language of the 15th amendment, applied a nationwide prohibition
of the denial or abridgment of the right to vote on account of race or color.
The use of poll taxes in national elections had been abolished by the 24th amendment
(1964) to the Constitution; the Voting Rights Act directed the Attorney General
to challenge the use of poll taxes in state and local elections. In Harper
v. Virginia State Board of Elections, 383 U.S. 663 (1966), the Supreme Court
held Virginia's poll tax to be unconstitutional under the 14th amendment.
Because the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was the most significant statutory change
in the relationship between the Federal and state governments in the area of
voting since the Reconstruction period following the Civil War, it was immediately
challenged in the courts. Between 1965 and 1969, the Supreme Court issued several
key decisions upholding the constitutionality of Section 5 and affirming the
broad range of voting practices for which preclearance was required. [See South
Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U.S. 301, 327-28 (1966) and Allen v. State
Board of Elections, 393 U.S. 544 (1969)]
The law had an immediate impact. By the end of 1965, a quarter of a million
new black voters had been registered, one-third by Federal examiners. By the
end of 1966, only 4 out of the 13 southern states had fewer than 50 percent
of African Americans registered to vote. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was readopted
and strengthened in 1970, 1975, and 1982.
